Musings, tips, and fun from a stay-at-home Mom who loves her job!

Posts tagged ‘Bible’

Update: First, Tuesday was my shopping day, so I didn’t have time to get the giveaway closed yesterday. So I’ll let the couple extra entries count.

And now, for the winners!

#107 is Becky

#93 is Lauren Mueller

I will be contacting the winners. Congratulations! I am really happy with the results. I believe these tabbers will be going to people who really need and will use them.

Remember, If you didn’t win, you can still purchase your own set of tabbers and make your own Bible at the Child Training Bible.

Have you heard about the Child Training Bible? I heard about it several months ago and was intrigued. I may have even participated in a giveaway for the kit. I decided it was something I would get… eventually. Then I saw a 2-for-1 special and bought it. But I didn’t have the budget for another Bible, and I didn’t have a blank one in my preferred translation (which happens to be KJV, by the way), so I filed it away. I also didn’t have the markers and tabs they recommend to go mark the Bible with.

A few months later, my husband brought home a Bible from church. It had been left in the “Free Books” section, and was hardly marked at all–appeared brand new, in fact. There was no name, so the librarian had decided to give it away. It was a study Bible, full of commentary at the bottom of pages, but it was KJV–actually, an updated KJV, which changed a few words, like which to who, ship to boat, updated some of the really archaic words like astonied, etc. I decided it was perfect.

The finished product--for now

Last Sabbath, I woke up feeling off. Not exactly sick, but I had a sore throat, and decided I would just stay home. I quickly decided it was the perfect opportunity to work on the Bible. I still didn’t have the markers or tabs, and there wasn’t money in the budget to get any, so I improvised. I picked out crayons to match the colors and marked with those, and I cut up some colored Post-it notes (coloring some to improvise colors I didn’t have), and used those to mark the pages. Sometime I plan on going back and changing to the proper tabs, but for now, I’m very happy with the results. It’s fully functional. I’m still debating whether to glue the master tab sheet on the cover as you can see in the picture, or just keep it inside the front cover as I have been keeping it for now.

This is what we are giving away. *

In case you’re not familiar with the Bible, here is how it works. There are a list of topics covering character issues, such as tattling, anger, lying, discouragement, etc. Each topic has a list of verses, and the topics are color coded. There are cards that go with each topic that also have heart questions and prayer suggestions on the back. What you do is go through and highlight the verses in colors that match the cards, then put matching colored tabs on the page to mark where it is. Then when you need to see what the Bible says about a particular character issue, you can open the Bible to one of the colored tabs and find the highlighted verse quickly.

As I went through the verses, I realized that this Bible isn’t only going to be useful in child training. It spoke to my heart to. Many of the verses spoke to me. Verses about self control reminded me that I haven’t always been the best example of keeping my emotions controlled when dealing with exasperating children.

Monday I took my first opportunity to use the Bible. I recently implemented the ticket system, and she had run out of tickets around 7:00 in the evening, not long before bedtime, so I told her to brush her teeth and go straight to bed. When I finished feeding the baby and came to see her, she was sitting on her bed, arms crossed, head down, lip slightly out, and darts of rebellion and defiance shooting out of her eyes. So I went and grabbed the Bible.

I opened it and read a few verses on anger, defiance, and obedience, asking her to say short prayers based on what we had read. At first, it didn’t seem like the verses were having any kind of impact; I would ask her what I had read, and she would just grunt and look away, or hide her head under a pillow, or something like that. But with each prayer, she became less and less resistant, until finally her last prayer was heartfelt and unprompted, and she was all smiles. Of course, she still had to go to bed, but now her heart was in the right place, and she went cheerfully.

But I’m not going to use the Bible just for discipline issues. As I went through it, I realized that we could use it for family worship. We could pick one verse or several on a topic that we felt needed to be addressed, read them, discuss them, illustrate them, and pray over them. There are 21 topics and an average of 8 verses per topic, so one verse a day would keep us busy for several months. I believe it will also be helpful for me when I find myself struggling with specific character issues (anger, discouragement, etc).

This shows a Bible done with the proper tabs. *

And here’s the best part: Mindy from the Child Training Bible has agreed to help me with a giveaway. I have no real use for my extra set, except to share it, so I thought I would do that, and she agreed to send an extra set to whoever wins the giveaway. So we will be giving away 2 sets! As in, two winners!

To keep things simple, I will avoid using a rafflecopter or some other fancy gadget to do the giveaway. Just make one comment per entry. You get one entry just for reading this far, and for extra entries, you can do one or more of the following (let me know what you did in the comment):

I decided yesterday that I would fast today. And I did. I drank water, but ate nothing.

There were several reasons for this. First, fasting strengthens the will. Second, it clears the mind. I wanted to have some time to really focus on God’s Word, and besides, it’s a good idea to fast once in a while.

But just because I was fasting, I realized that I couldn’t get out of every responsibility I had that day. I served breakfast to my daughter (thankfully, it was leftover frozen pancakes and waffles, so I didn’t have to actually cook). I made beds, picked up things that were laying around, cleaned the hen house and collected the eggs, etc. I showered and minded the children for a while. When my husband came back from the gym around noon, he took the kids to the playground for an hour or so, and I prepared lunch for them. Then I left home, telling my husband I didn’t know when I would be back.

The first thing I did was to go to a nature park. It has a couple miles of trails with benches scattered along some of them. It is shady and cool with all the trees, so it was the perfect place to be alone in nature with God–the best I can find in this area, anyway.

I had brought my Bible, my iPod (for its Bible program), a devotional-like book that I’m reading, a notebook, and my prayer journal. I spent some time praying, reading, and in Bible study. I was probably there a couple of hours–I didn’t keep track of time. It was a real blessing–away from the computer, away from the demands of the home, alone with God.

When I finished, I went shopping. Yes, even though it was late afternoon and I hadn’t eaten anything all day, I went shopping. They say you should never shop on an empty stomach, but I did it anyway. And I realized that the practice of saying no to food throughout the day as I worked in the kitchen today had strengthened my will to the point that I was able to say no not only to buying something to eat right there, but to also not buy unnecessary items. I guess that the habit of only buying what’s on my list unless I know for sure that we will need it within the next week paid off. That, and having a budget. (If you don’t have a budget, you should!)

But there was a side benefit to this experience. I learned a little something about the power of the will. As I was walking through the bulk section, buying lentils and cashews and such, I noticed a bin of what I think were probably miniature chocolate chip cookies. I say probably, because I didn’t look at them long enough to be sure. I knew that if I studied them or debated about them, I would be tempted to buy them. So instead I turned away and focused on writing the bin number on the tag for the bag of lentils.

As I went through the store, each time I was tempted to buy some snack-like item to eat, I would turn away quickly and focus on what I needed to get for the family for the week. I had resolved to fast the entire day, and I didn’t want to have the regret of eating something near the end. This resolve helped me stay focused on my goal and the task at hand.

And at this moment, it is a little after 9:00 pm, and I still haven’t eaten anything. I have drunk plenty of water, and shortly I will go to bed. I have succeeded in my goal!

But the principle I learned today will be valuable in the future. To resist temptation, I must refuse to ponder on it. If I am tempted to spend time on the computer when I really should be folding laundry and fixing lunch, I need to resist the temptation and go start on the laundry.

So many times in the past, when I was tempted to do something that I shouldn’t do, I would think about it, dwell on how much I wanted to do it, and before I knew it, I was doing it. Now I know that if I resist the first temptation, the second one will be weaker and weaker until the devil will have to come up with another temptation altogether, because that one will have lost its appeal.

But through it all, I know that I cannot do this without God. Sure, there are times I can resist temptation on my own, to a point. But the Christian life isn’t about just not falling into sin. It’s not just about keeping the commandments. The rich young ruler did that. And he still had a nameless longing that he didn’t know how to fill. The Christian life is about putting God in first place in my life and developing a relationship with Him. As I do that, He will empower me to make the right choices. And I will be motivated to do the right things, not just because I have to or because they are the right things to do, but because I love God.

Oh Lord, You know how weak I am. Please take my will, refine and ennoble it, and give it back to me. Give me a tender heart, open to the voice of Your Holy Spirit. Help me to be so sensitive to Your voice that the lightest whisper of Jesus will move my soul. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

About Me

My name is Lisa. I live in Oregon with my husband and two children. I love being a Mom, and this blog is about my life. It will grow and change over time. Feel free to subscribe so you keep up with what's happening in my life.